WHATS ON

artist statement continued…

We know about Neuroplasticity and we know that when we view our own image it activates an area of the brain known as the fusiform face area, which processes  facial recognition. This is known to heighten Self-awareness and Self consciousness.

How will human beings adapt to living both in the real world and the digital world? 

The Artist is interested in these questions and how we engage with digital technologies and applications in the future and in turn how will that change human existence?

What freedoms will we lose ,what freedoms are we willing to sacrifice?

Questions about the freedom of the individual in the collective of society is a constant stimulus for the artist and a recurring theme in his work.

The artist is concerned   with the commodification of freedom and how we in Ireland and western Europe trade the freedom of other human beings in  other countries for geopolitical concerns, cheap goods, energy and narrow nationalistic political self interest.

 LEFT FIELD

Artist Statement

The Artist’s current work  relates to the human condition in the current age of technological advancement,climate crisis, economic crisis and hybrid digital existence. The aim of the work is to evoke a sense of displacement in the viewer to convey a feeling of disintegration and disruption of the self. The Artist is interested in going beyond pictorial representation and creating a ‘sensation’ in the viewer  through  the device of disturbing the perception of the viewer and  so evoking in them a feeling of the uncanny.

In the  book of essays on painting  ‘The Artists Reality’  Mark Rothko refers to the sin of ‘considering appearance as reality’. This concept interests the artist who enjoys playing around with this concept in his paintings . 

The figures in this body of work hover somewhere at the edges of visual perception. These figures which are created using traditional techniques from digitally manipulated source material  and are fragmented,distorted and disrupted , existing in different planes the figures appear and disappear in a constant flow of content.

The artist’s work explores the place of the individual within this context where nothing is certain and  all is flux.

 The effects of our digital hybrid existence are still not fully known .‘Increased time spent video conferencing, using social media and using filters on these platforms has led to worsening self perception and mental health’( Harvard).